YouYou

We created YouYou because we saw a problem. The problem: selfies. And not just selfies, but too many selfies. Social networking has become too much about the “me” and not enough about the “you”. Some social networking profiles have become portfolios of beautifully lit and filtered selfies rather than a fun way to connect with friends. Selfies and self-promotion on social networks may help to boost confidence (which is great), but there comes a point when too much self-confidence comes off as arrogant and when one loses a balance between promoting oneself and supporting friends and family. That is where our app, YouYou comes in! YouYou not only encourages, but forces users to interact with their friends and share their positive feelings toward their friends. On YouYou, users can only post on other people’s profiles, thus the posts on any user’s profile is made up entirely of messages from other people. YouYou is an uplifting social networking app which relies on human interconnection and relationships.

"We loved being able to explore a completely uncharted territory for us (Android apps!) while learning so much and having fun. We also enjoyed the creative freedom we got to create an app that we are passionate about."— Teresa

To implement this native Android application, we coded in Java using Eclipse. Additionally, we used the Facebook API so users can log in to the app using their Facebook account. The SQLite Database was used so users can send messages to each other. The most difficult part of creating this app was learning how to create Android applications from scratch in less than 2 weeks. However, we learned a lot and had so much fun. It was a great experience for all of us and we hope to develop YouYou further in the future.

We're excited to continually grow in the field of computer science and we are eager to help spread computer science to other girls in our community. This project only made us even more excited to learn about the world of computer science now and in the future.